Hawkishness Can Be a Serious Liability

Zachary Keck argues that Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy views don’t matter for the next election because foreign policy isn’t a priority for most voters:

The only exception to this rule is when the economy is rather good and foreign policy is really bad. And for American voters, foreign policy is only really bad when the country is bogged down in long, pointless ground wars and American soldiers are dying as a result. Thus, foreign policy was an important issue in the 1968 and 2004 presidential elections.

Even in these rare exceptions, however, being hawkish doesn’t seem to be a deficiency but an attribute. Thus, while Lyndon B. Johnson decided against running for re-election in 1968 because of his disastrous policies in Vietnam, Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s strident opposition to the Vietnam War resulted in a landslide victory for Richard Nixon [bold mine-DL]. Similarly, George W. Bush was able to win re-election in part by painting John Kerry as overly dovish.

There are a few things that need to be corrected here. First, Humphrey wasn’t a strident opponent of the war. He wasn’t publicly opposed to the war at all. As Johnson’s vice president, he inherited the baggage of the administration’s war policy, which he publicly supported, and the party platform included a generally pro-war plank that Humphrey favored. In 1968, Nixon was the relatively more dovish candidate on Vietnam, and it was partly because of this that he narrowly edged out Humphrey. Hawkishness can be a political attribute when it is not directly connected to specific policies and their consequences, because it can be presented as the “responsible” position. However, the more clearly that the public can see the real costs of hawkish policies, the less popular they tend to be.

While Bush narrowly prevailed in 2004, his re-election was won by one of the smallest margins for a sitting president in modern U.S. history, which is all the more striking when one considers his extraordinarily high approval ratings just a year or two before. Bush may have tried painting Kerry as too dovish at times, but the main attacks against the Democratic nominee were that he was hypocritical to criticize Bush on Iraq when he had also voted for the authorization, that his opposition to the war was late and opportunistic, and that he was supposedly too deferential to international opinion (the so-called “global test” controversy). However, even in 2004 Bush’s foreign policy was already becoming something of liability for him and his party, and as the situation in Iraq deteriorated it became a major one. In the decade since then, a reputation for hawkishness has gone from helping presidential candidates to hurting them. Being perceived as the most hawkish candidate can often be a liability in presidential politics. Most voters may be willing to support a generally hawkish candidate, but not one that is perceived as reckless or too eager to resort to force.

Republicans lost the presidential election in 2008 for several reasons, but their ongoing support for and identification with the Iraq war was a major factor. Keck mentions the huge “imbalance” between McCain and Obama in terms of experience, but this is why that imbalance actually worked in Obama’s favor: the candidate with experience had supported the biggest foreign policy blunder in a generation, and the inexperienced candidate had not. In that case, McCain’s predictable hawkishness was political poison. Not much has changed in the last six years to make a reliably hawkish candidate more appealing, which is why Clinton does have something to worry about. One of McCain’s problems was that enough voters didn’t trust his judgment on foreign policy because they feared that he would plunge the U.S. into new and unnecessary conflicts, and everything in his record tells us this was a very reasonable fear. Clinton is somewhat less reflexively hawkish, but predictably ends up on the same side of every debate about the use of force. That will continue to make many people distrust her judgment on these issues, and that is likely to alienate some Democratic voters all together and dispirit others that she will need to turn out for her at the polls. That wouldn’t be enough by itself to change the outcome of an election, but it will make it more difficult for her to keep Obama’s coalition together and to get them to turn out for her as much as they did in 2008 and 2012.

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16 Responses to Hawkishness Can Be a Serious Liability

Keck has the 1968 election, which was no landslide, confused with 1972. If memory serves in 1968 Humphrey was closing the gap in the final days as peace talks were being pursued by the LBJ-HHH administration. Democrats later claimed Nixon struck a deal with the South Vietnam government not to agree to peace talks before election day.

In 1968, the “dove” candidate was Eugene McCarthy. Humphrey unequivocally supported LBJ’s handling of the war. It was the Humphrey/McCarthy battle that led to the disaster that became of the Chicago Dem convention. Obviously, Humphrey won that fight, though it was not so much about pro- vs. anti-war, as it was a generational fight between the establishment and the counterculture. In the general election, Candidate Nixon ran as the relatively less hawkish option. The anti-war Dems, in reaction to Chicago, either sat the election out or crossed over to vote for Nixon. It was only after taking office that Nixon turned around and started escalating the war. (Which again was at least in part driven by the establishment/counterculture divide. Essentially, “if the hippies are against it, we should be for it”)

Of course, this guy doesn’t know a damn thing about the 1968 election (not a landslide, and the gap was closing, as per Frank O’Connor, as Humphrey finally distanced himself from Johnson and as peace talks seemed close to fruition in the last weeks).

But it is true that FP is not usually a major concern with presidential voters unless there is a war going on, and then it will hurt the incumbent party if it is going badly. Vietnam hurt Humphrey because it was going badly and he was in the incumbent party (and Administration as well). The Korean War, which was stalemated, hurt Stevenson, even though he was not in the Truman Administration, because he was in the incumbent party. Iraq hurt McCain for the same reasons.

Dove or hawk is not necessarily the issue. While Obama might fit the bill as a “dove” (especially in 2008), that is a hard label to pin on Eisenhower or Nixon, both of whom profited from failed wars that could be blamed on the incumbent party.

And it is true that hawkishness did not hurt the incumbent party very much when the war situation was more ambiguous, such as with Nixon in 1972 (inherited war, peace talks seemingly close to bearing fruit, war winding down..”Vietnamization”…for USA in any case) and Bush in 2004 (opponent could not or would not make war a central campaign issue, war not irretrievably lost yet).

In terms of Hillary, his analysis is more or less on target, I suppose. FP will not be a major issue, should she win the nomination and the GOP nominate a hawk (as it usually does). The GOP is simply not built to “out dove” a Democrat (and trying to do so would make it more Kerry-like than Kerry himself in terms of inconsistency bordering on hypocrisy), and there will be no ongoing failed ground war to pin on Hillary or the outgoing Administration (of which she had been a part) or the Dems generally. Hillary’s hawkishness will instead insulate her from the usual “soft on defense” claim of the GOP, which might be intensified against a female Dem nominee.

Nixon definitely didn’t run as a hawk in ’68–his slogan was “peace with honor” which opened itself to interpretation, but certainly couldn’t be confused with “win the war”. The “honor” part is what tripped him up once he took office though–it required him to try and get a good enough deal that it wouldn’t look like we were abandoning our allies, and so he escalated the war to try and get better terms.

Humphrey, for whatever he believed personally, never criticized LBJ’s handling of the war during or before that campaign. He’d made his choice to stay loyal, hoping LBJ could pull out a peace deal in time for the election. Had Humphrey been “stridently” opposed to the war (like say Eugene McCarthy was) there likely would have been no protest at the Chicago Convention. If Humphrey were anti-war, then what were the McCarthy folks protesting about?

2004 was a bit more complicated–the Iraq War wasn’t yet the liability it would become, and that’s why the Dems nominated a guy who voted for it (and a running mate who did as well). Kerry’s clumsy attempt to be the anti-war candidate was hamstrung by charges of opportunism at a time when the voters hadn’t yet lost confidence in Bush’s ability to wind down the conflict. The growing discontent over the war was the reason the election got so close–many were unhappy with Bush’s handling of the war but weren’t quite ready to go with Kerry who had such a muddled outlook that he wasn’t really an “antiwar” candidate so much as an “antiwar by comparison” candidate.

1972, on the other hand, on the surface did in fact play out very much as a referendum on the war. By now, because of the escalation, it was very much seen as “Nixon’s war” and McGovern made ending the war his main campaign plank. But under the surface, what really happened was that the war was also by now a full-fledged surrogate for the entire establishment/counterculture war that was taking place domestically. Nixon succeeded in making it all about the “silent majority” who supported the war against the “radical hippie peaceniks” who were against it. This despite the fact that McGovern himself was a genuine WWII war hero.

So in this case, although the “hawk” won a decisive victory over the “dove”, it was really still all about what was happening domestically, and was actually just the establishment winning over the counterculture.

Clinton is just a much more effective delivery vehicle for hawkish ideas than McCain. By virtue of being a popular, female Democrat she starts off with the largest, most reliable anti-war block (anti-war female Democrats) predisposed to her.

My wife and mother don’t follow politics, but they know two things: they don’t want any more wars, and they like Hillary. My guess is this view is very, very common.

Clinton is also able to speak for extended periods of time, and with passion, about something other than starting a war with Russia. That gives her a huge advantage over McCain.

Re: 1972–the dynamics were very different from 1968; our troop levels were dropping, as were casualties, and the country seemed closer to a peace deal by that point, so Nixon being the more “hawkish” alternative to McGovern worked to his benefit. So the real lesson is that yes, foreign policy does matter when domestic issues don’t overshadow, and dovishness (or relative dovishness) only helps when we’re in a war that is unpopular and viewed as going poorly.

I agree that this issue probably won’t hurt Hillary, despite her opportunistic and warmongering instincts which should be a disqualifier. The thing is, Democrats are mostly anti-war when the pro-war candidate is a Republican. Notice how anti-war protests seemed to die down in early 2009, even while Obama (a) tried extending our presence in Iraq, only dropping the idea when he couldn’t get a deal with the Iraqis; and (b) actually beefed up our presence in Afghanistan. It seems most of the anti-war movement wasn’t so much anti-war as anti-Bush. So they’re not going to punish Hillary over this issue, sadly.

Then of course once she has the nomination, it’s almost assured (unless Rand Paul pulls off an upset) that she’s going to be running against an even more hawkish GOP nominee. So any genuinely anti-war voter would have to go third party.

Daniel Larison is correct that “as Johnson’s vice president, [Humphrey had] inherited the baggage of the administration’s war policy, which he publicly supported, and the party platform included a generally pro-war plank that Humphrey favored.”

In fact Humphrey’s strong public identification with the war (events at Democratic Convention in Chicago strengthened this identification) was a big part of the reason that he trailed Nixon in the September 27th Gallup poll 44% to 29%.

Thus, on September 30th, to try to turn his campaign around, Humphrey announced that if he was elected, he would put an end to the bombing of North Vietnam and he called for a ceasefire – calling his new policy “as an acceptable risk for peace.” Humphrey compared his new stance of Vietnam with Nixon’s unspecified “secret plan for peace” which Nixon said he would only announce after his inauguration.

As a result of Humphrey’s switch to a more dovish position on the war, fewer anti-war protesters dogged Humphrey’s campaign appearances, peace candidate McCarthy eventually endorsed him, and Humphrey’s poll deficit to Nixon shrank to single digits. (Nixon’s refusal to join in the presidential debate and George Wallace’s strong third-party showing were also factors that hurt Nixon.)

Even though Nixon got 301 Electoral College votes (to 191 for Humphrey and 46 for Wallace) the popular vote was extremely close with Nixon edging Humphrey by only 43.42% to 42.72%. Humphrey’s more pro-peace stance in the final five weeks of the campaign had brought him from a 15% deficit to less than 1% on Election Day.

After reading all the comments above, I have to give the highest mark to Kurt Gayle. His account nails it. In the 1968 election, Humphrey was constrained by his close relationship to LBJ, but, after the nominating convention, he tried to distance himself from the war in Vietnam and with the peace talks, almost won the very close election. Nixon, as his former close aide Pat Buchanan concedes, succeeded in scuttling those talks. (Pat speculates that it was to hide his role in doing so that was the real reason for the much later 1972 Watergate break-in that led to his downfall.) To his credit, Nixon had succeeded in withdrawing all U.S. troops from Vietnam before the 1972 election. So it is a bit misleading to portray Nixon as a war hawk once he became President. Had Obama followed Nixon’s example, all of our troops would have been out of Afghanistan by the time of the 2012 election, not just Iraq, and there would have been no surge in 2009-10.

Well, I think more than Humphrey calling for a bombing halt what really helped him (and nearly worked for him) was that LBJ himself had announced the bombing halt that fall, and nearly got a peace deal in time for the election. Then, Humphrey could be associated with the administration that was ending its involvement in Vietnam. Had there not been progress on this front, Humphrey would be in the unenviable position of either supporting LBJ’s policies (which were not bringing peace) or appearing to be opportunistic and disloyal (waiting until the 11th hour to turn against the war, when he may have had a chance to prevent the escalation earlier on).

One part of this equation everyone is leaving out is the 13% of the electorate that voted for Wallace and his warmongering VP candidate, Curtis LeMay. Whether you added the Wallace voters (who hardly could be considered “doves”) to the Nixon share or the Humphrey share–and considering that neither Humphrey nor Nixon could really be called “hawks” or “doves”, as neither campaigned on escalation or unilateral pullout–the 1968 election reflects if anything a divided and conflicted electorate. Which is fitting, because the war by 1968 left no attractive options–pulling out unilaterally would have looked like abandonment of our allies (and our POWs if we couldn’t get them returned) and further escalation would have resulted in more bloodshed but little prospect of a “win”, however one could be defined.

What this means for today’s electorate isn’t clear–the wars we’re involved in (or soon to be involved in) are different in a lot of ways from Vietnam, and the electorate is a lot different as well. We still have major party establishments that tend towards intervention, and seem to think that new technology will make it more “bloodless” (for us, at least). But we still have the potential for long, winless involvements.

An appropriate subject for the glad day that Eric Cantor’s ill-omened career in the House finally ends.

Yes, yes, I know that the media gave the immigration issue the lion’s share of credit for this happy result, but in my view Cantor’s hawkishness played as big a role. And to this Tea Party voter, the most surprising (and disappointing) result of recent primaries has been Lindsay Graham’s survival.

“What this means for today’s electorate isn’t clear–the wars we’re involved in (or soon to be involved in) are different in a lot of ways from Vietnam, and the electorate is a lot different as well. We still have major party establishments that tend towards intervention, and seem to think that new technology will make it more “bloodless” (for us, at least). But we still have the potential for long, winless involvements.”

Well said. When all is said and done, this is really the most important take-away from this discussion. For many reasons (a few of which several of us have touched on above, and many others as well) any attempt to explain or predict today’s politics in the terms of 1968/1972 is doomed to fail. The issues, the electorate, and the candidates are all too different now from what they were then.

“Well, I think more than Humphrey calling for a bombing halt what really helped him (and nearly worked for him) was that LBJ himself had announced the bombing halt that fall, and nearly got a peace deal in time for the election.”

No argument here, but the thought occurred to me after I posted above that, while it is conceivable that Humphrey may have pulled out a popular vote victory, I am not so sure about an Electoral College victory. It’s been a while since I read “The Making of the President 1968,” but Nixon had John Mitchell as his campaign manager, and Mitchell was a very disciplined man who kept his eye on the prize. I can’t remember off hand whether there were enough close state races where a swing toward Humphrey would have thrown enough electoral votes to Humphrey to give him the presidency. We probably would have wound up like Bush-Gore in 2000.

If the Republicans nominate another McCain, Romney, Bush type candidate Keck is probably correct it won’t matter as there would be no effective foreign policy difference between them and Clinton. However that would all change if Paul were the nominee. Ross Perot used infamous quip “Giant sucking sound” in relationship to NAFTA, in a Rand Paul versus Hilliary it would be all the neo-cons crossing the aisle to Clinton that would make the sucking sound. The question will be if younger voters will switch too Paul with enough numbers to balance that out.

The Vietnam War was not an issue in the Fall election, except to depress the votes of Democrats who, opposing the war, didn’t turn out for Humphrey. Nixon promising “peace with honor” was a promise not simply to give up the battle. It is pretty much what Obama promised in Afghanistan, and what both presidents delivered – turning the war over to the wartorn countries own “democratic” forces whom the American people were taught to believe would emerge victorious because of this virtue but who, in fact, were viewed by a majority of their countrymen as the puppets of foreign masters.

Humphrey lost the election because of domestic concerns – riots in streets, both racial and antiwar – driving the white middle class into Nixon’s arms in the North, and Johnson/Humphrey civil rights policies making Humphrey unelectable in the South. (He actually finished third in most Southern states, including moderate North Carolina. The idea that a candidate finishing third anywhere in the country could be elected made a Humphrey victory preposterous. Had Nixon failed to get an electoral college majority, he rather than Humphrey would have bargained to get the votes of Wallace’s electors.)

Re: the 2016 election

If Rand Paul is the Republican nominee he will run, not as a “dove” against Hillary the “hawk”, but rather as a Reagan “peace through strength” candidate who disdains to go to war unnecessarily versus versus Jimmy Carter making foreign policy out of enforcing other nation’s people’s “human rights”, thereby inviting the United States into foreign wars. This is not an unnatural position for Republicans, if they will just remember it. How long ago was it that GOP candidate Bob Dole characterized Republicans as the Party that always got the country out of foreign wars started by Democrats? Wasn’t that 1996? Democrats threw a fit because back then the argument was actually reasonable.

“Re: The ’68 election: The Vietnam War was not an issue in the Fall election, except to depress the votes of Democrats who, opposing the war, didn’t turn out for Humphrey…Humphrey lost the election because of domestic concerns – riots in streets, both racial and antiwar – driving the white middle class into Nixon’s arms in the North, and Johnson/Humphrey civil rights policies making Humphrey unelectable in the South.”

Harry Basehart wrote:

“According to opinion surveys, Americans saw the Vietnam War as the most important problem facing the country (51 per cent)…The Vietnam War had more than a two-to-one lead over both civil rights and law-and-order issues.” (from The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History, Spencer C. Tucker, editor, 2nd edition, 2011, p-335)